Evil Movie Review: Ghostbusters (2016)

Last Thursday night, I went with my daughter and some friends to see the new Ghostbusters. I am a die hard fan of the original Ghostbusters (GB84). When I first heard that a new movie was being made, I was skeptical. “How are they going to do this without Harold Ramis?” Then came the announcement that they were using an all female cast (an announcement that I believe was a mistake, but more on that later) and that the movie was a reboot as opposed to a sequel or spin off. Again, my pessimism took root; this was going to be a terrible movie.

When the first trailer came out, I was appalled at how bad the movie looked. The jokes in the trailer were not funny, and it looked like they were trying to connect it to the GB84, despite the fact that it does not take place within that cannon. The second trailer was better, but not by much.

A week or so before the movie opened, I made a decision. I had read an interview with Ivan Reitman in which he stated that the marketing for the film did a poor job of representing the movie they had made. Putting my trust in Mr. Reitman, I decided that I was not going to hate a movie that I had not yet seen. As I told anyone who asked, I was remaining cautiously pessimistic. I was expecting a bad movie, but I was going to leave my mind open to the possibility that the movie could be good. I have seen many movies where the trailers were amazing, but the movie turned out to be awful. Why can’t the inverse be true?

I will not give any spoilers so feel free to read on. I am glad that I kept my mind open. Ghostbusters (GB16) was great. Those terrible jokes in the trailer were the worst that the movie had to offer. The comedy was funny, the action scenes were exciting, the cast was excellent.

Mr. Reitman, you were correct. The advertising for this movie does it no justice whatsoever. The filmmakers managed to take the general idea from GB84 and do their own thing.

As good as the movie was, there are some things I would have done differently. First, I would not have made an announcement stating the movie would be starring all women. I would have announced the names of the actresses, but put no focus on their gender. If we start treating this as normal, eventually it will be. Second, the movie would not have taken place in New York City. By putting the setting somewhere else, this could have been a spinoff movie instead of a reboot. Make the city far enough from New York (LA, Miami, Detroit, wherever) so that the people there might remember the news of a ghost invasion in NY, but they didn’t live it. This allows for the people to believe that those events were fraud and allows for a world where the general population does not believe in ghosts. The new team could have bought a franchise from the original team. The story would not have needed much change and some of the backlash might have been avoided.

All in all, this was a very good movie and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes the original and has a mind open enough to accept a good reimagining.

-Jonathan Fass

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